CNM Students Place in Screenwriting Competition

April 27, 2017 -- CNM students took first and third place in the Scholastic Screenwriting Competition sponsored by the New Mexico Film Foundation. Their scripts were read by local actors during a gala at the Governor’s Mansion in Santa Fe on Friday.

Apr 27, 2017

The CNM screenwriters are Oliver Galvan, who won first place and received a $1,000 prize, and Kody Hamilton, who came in third place, winning $200.

The scripts, which were submitted online, were required to follow a New Mexico historical theme. Both men’s screenplays featured conquistadors, pueblos they were trying to conquer and mythological figures who came to the aid of the pueblos.

“A lot of movies are filmed in New Mexico, but they are not written and produced here,” Galvan said. “These awards are an attempt to encourage high school and college students to learn to create films so they will one day be able to go from concept to the final, edited version -- all in New Mexico.”

Galvan’s story was about the brother of the famous conquistador Juan de Oñate, who tried to conquer Jemez Pueblo. A young man of the pueblo fought back with the help of Mountain Flower, a 67-year-old healer who casts a spell to change herself into a wolf-like creature.

Galvan said that as a young child his mother never let him watch movies because of the bad influence they might have. When he went to the University of New Mexico to study biology and chemistry, he made daily trips to Hastings to rent movies.

While his friends were out on the town, he would stay home and watch films, becoming hooked. After graduating from UNM, he decided to study film making at CNM.

Hamilton said he always loved movies. As a kid he would carry a notebook and pen around and would constantly scribble movie ideas. He’s majoring in computer information systems at CNM, but he says his real dream is to make movies.

He’d like to turn his award-winning script into an actual movie someday. It’s about a young woman who runs away from home after conquistadors burn down her home. She meets Toho, a mythological figure from Native folklore, who helps her in her fight against the Spanish solders.

Hamilton sees the honor from the New Mexico Film Foundation as just a beginning. He’s already planning on entering another competition in the next few months.